IP Restrictions & Server Security

Every server connected to the Internet gets attacked by other users (or servers) on the Internet. These attacks happen thousands of times per day and are mostly due to hackers. Now, it is very important to keep in mind that, an "attack" does not mean that the hacker was successful! The "attackers" are typically robots (software programs) written to find and exploit weaknesses in other web software (namely, your website). If you're unfamiliar with the term "robot," you can think of these robots as web browsers, except instead of a person typing in your URL, it's a software program. Google and other search engines use robots to crawl through websites and analyze the content. Hackers use robots for malicious purposes.

This system automatically blocks thousands of attacks per day. And by stopping an attack to one website, we prevent that same hacker from attacking other Sitemason® websites too. 99.9% of those banned IP addresses are robots, but every now and then, an actual person (not a robot!) will be unable to access a Sitemason® website. If the traffic is legitimate, we want to make sure that it's allowed through. For more information on the reasons why users cannot view a Sitemason® website as well as remedies to that scenario, please see this forum post: